ROOF AND BACK-YARD GARDENS 29 



ten sorts of flowers bloom freely, Petunias doing best of 

 all. Gardening operations, as carried on by the boys and 

 Superintendent, are an unfailing source of amusement to 

 the children of the surrounding poor. A pond and 

 fountain with spray rising sixteen feet high are crowning 

 glories of this shady jungle, where, but a few years since 

 there was nothing to be seen but a bare zinc roof, some 

 twelve yards square. The place has now been pet-named 

 ^'PelhamPark." 



A private roof-garden at the back of a London house, 

 four stories from the ground, is graphically described by 

 an amateur gardener, who says he " fights for failure," 

 but he does so cheerfully. There are some points, he 

 says, on which the many-acred owner of a country 

 garden might envy his rival on the roof. One is his 

 personal intimacy with his garden kingdom and its 

 subjects. 



"Up among the chimney pots he has watched each 

 plant through all difficulties struggling up into timid 

 blossoms ; he has washed away daily smuts and combated 

 incessant sparrows with cotton entanglements, and now 

 knows every flower, nay, every petal, with a personal 

 love. He will tell you which day of the week the Pansy 

 lost its second bud through the sparrows, just when it 

 looked certain to be quite as good as the flower he got 

 last year ; or he will show you how the Canariensis, 

 baffled by the same marauders last Friday week, has tried 

 again with a second shoot which will be out before 

 Wednesday ; those Pansies were specially bought at 

 Covent Garden ; as for the Sweet Peas, they came as 

 seedlings, not a tenth their present size, and they will be 

 even better in a fortnight. The Solanum is a special 

 prize, and comes from a country garden ; but dearer than 

 that is the Geranium, grown from one of his own cuttings, 

 a real scion of the family." 



A Geranium among the slates and chimney stacks ! 



